Notes on Buenos Aires: Greetings and Mate and Dogs, Oh My!

True to form, I’ve hit my lazy peak and put off writing for the good of no one.  Maybe I’ve been overcome with the uber-lax and carefree Porteño mentality, where time knows no limits and life is too good to care.  Regardless, I’ve procrastinated too long and now would like to share with y’all some accumulated points of interests I’ve come across these past 4 months in the lovely Buenos Aires:

1. Greetings are important here.  You greet everyone with a kiss on one cheek (not two), whether they are friends or strangers and leaving a party can be quite an investment of time as typically you kiss EVERYONE goodbye.  I love this about Argentina.  I’ve been told Americans are “cold” in our greetings with a wave of hello or a handshake. Guess we can’t get anything right!

2. This is a dog-obsessed city but clearly not an excrement-cleaning-obsessed city because the sidewalks are abundant with poop.

3. Women wear their hair VERY long here, young and old alike, and let’s not forget the myriad of plastic surgery options, which proves to be a bad combination for men who see a hot bod and long hair from behind and as she turns around…BAM! She’s 60. Oops.

4. Argentines use hand and facial gestures like a deaf …. Ok too much. But yeah, the gestures are a hoot.

5. Dulce de leche: a thick caramel-like, milk-based sauce that is in EVERYTHING. Personally, I’m not the biggest fan, although it is starting to grow on me only because it’s literally shoved into my face every chance I turn.  I’ve told people about my lack of fondness for DDL and immediately get the “wtf is wrong with you” look.

6. People ACTUALLY pay to get on buses here!

7. Why do they call croissants “medialunas” when in fact they are not half a moon but more so a third moon? Think about that!

8. Drinking mate (pronounced mah-teh) is like a cult following.  You have your gourd, your yerba, your straw, your thermos and your bag to carry all the said items.  People walk around with their mate like we walk around with our massive starbucks/pete’s/coffee bean lattes. Yeah, it’s like that, except they share and we don’t.  And their gourds look way cooler than our blah cups.  There is an entire set of rules that needs to be followed when drinking Mate.

9. Fútbol (or soccer as we call it) teams are passed down in family tradition like last names.  It’s in your family, it’s in your blood.

10. Best meat and wine I’ve ever tasted in my life came from Argentina and they’re damn proud of it too. They take their meat very seriously.

11. Dinner at 10pm, Previa (pregame) at 1am, club at 2am, home by 6am.  These have been my weekends.  Nothing like coming home from a club or someone’s house  when the sun begins to rise and birds are chirping.  I guess the walk of shame doesn’t exist here.

12. So yeah, racism. Anyone who’s Asian is called CHINO and anyone with dark or tan skin is called BLACK. Hey at least it’s a simple system right?

13. Ask any Argentine kid if they know what peanut butter is and they’ll cringe at you.  My response? “ You eat caramel on toast for breakfast, how is that not gross?”

14. Milanesas. Empanadas.  Pizza.  If you don’t know what these are, you’ve clearly not left your hostel or apartment. Ever.

15. You have to consider every cab driver as shady and willing to give you fake bills as change, so always come prepared with small bills in the cab!

16. Argentina time: 1.5-2 hours after proposed time, yup, TIA: This Is Argentina!

17. Argentine men often describe Argentine women as “hysterica”, which doesn’t necessarily translate to ‘hysterical’, it just merely describes a woman who is back and forth, hot and cold, plays games, lays it on heavy and then backs off, dramatic then plays it cool, etc My teenage boys  at my camp definitely use that word a lot.

18. An ASADO is NOT like a bbq, not in the least bit.  An asado entails the following: an asador (the person in charge of cooking the meat), a parilla (often times a large fire pit of a grill) and massive amounts of wine and beer.  Meat is not slathered with sauce but tastefully salted and peppered, every piece of meat is cut and shared with everyone and at the end, someone always makes an announcement for a round of applause for the asador (or in my case asadora).  Drinking continues. When it’s your first time being the asador/a and people clap for all your blood, sweat and tears, there’s no other feeling like it!

Just a few observations.  The longer I’m here, the more and more I fall in love with the culture, the people, the city.  Stay tuned for more.